In a modern hospital, the personnel of each medical department such as Laboratory, Radiology, etc. all employ electronic information systems to help them order and track the progress or status change of the type of procedures that they perform on a patient. Each department have many different types of procedures they perform. Each procedure has its own number of routine events or steps that must be performed to complete its processing cycle. Both clerical and technical workers are involved in performing the various events or steps in the processing cycle. The procedure will next be described by describing how a CT scan has been performed.
Typically a physician will call a department to order a particular test to be performed on a certain patient. The receptionist of the department will then enter the procedure ordered on the patient into their department information system. This is the first event or step in the processing cycle of any procedure or test. The ordered procedure may show up in the form of a computer paper out print or on a computer display screen. Next, a technologist sees the patient's procedure is in the “order status” goes and gets the patient from a waiting area then brings the patient into an examining room to perform the procedure. Before starting to perform the procedure the technologist enters data into the department's information system which changes the procedure's status from “ordered” to “started” and indicates to other technologists that the procedure is being performed. Once the technologist has finished performing the procedure, he immediately enters data into the department's information system which now changes the procedure's processing cycle's status again. This time the data that is entered into the department's information system changes the procedure's status from “started” to “completed” and shows that the technologist has finished performing the procedure and the next event, or step in the cycle, can be performed. Next, a radiologist sees on a display computer screen of the department's information system that this particular procedure is in the “completed status” which indicates to him that it is ready to be dictated or interpreted by a radiologist. Before the radiologist begins to read the procedure he now enters data into the department's information system which changes the procedure's status from “completed” to “started dictation”.
In my prior patent (U.S. Pat. No. 6,282,513) I teach that a standard protocol examination (such as a CT scan) can be recorded in a computer and the actual results of the examination is compared to the standard and a result is printed out.